SURF, click, deliver: That’s how easy it is to buy cheap goods like clothing from online stores based in foreign countries – but it’s devastating South African manufacturing and costing jobs.
Experts say cheaper online stores are pricing locally manufactured goods out of the market and could lead to many job losses; not only in manufacturing, but in warehouses, malls and physical stores as well.
Professor Pfano Mashau of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Graduate School of Business and Leadership said the government should subsidise local companies so they can lower prices and compete with international websites like Temu and Shein.
“In South Africa with